Analysis of Power Systems with Select Cyber and Physical Contingencies

Abstract

The power transmission grid plays an important role in modern society and its failure has a significant impact. In the past, the grid has been subjected to malicious attack. This work focusses on maintaining the steady state stability of the grid, either under times of component failure (Such as FACT devices) or under situations of malicious attack, and then, developing techniques to analyze the system stability. This work develops upon existing analysis techniques, such as sensitivity and clustering analysis to develop methods of mitigation of failure of FACTS devices. The analytic clustering method is compared with a Bayesian Network inference technique based technique that is introduced and developed. Further, the mitigation technique is extended to dynamically changing operating points of FACTS devices, and the implementation for instances of failure and other states of compromised operation is discussed. The final part presents an analysis technique, based on small signal analysis of the system to analyze the vulnerability of the system to frequency instability in instances of spoof attacks. The results of the first part of this work explore the use of alternate techniques to improve analytic computation techniques, weighing in the benefits of the various methods, with the second and third parts addressing the impact of reactive support devices on system operation and stability, offering insights into the interaction of system parameters during steady-state and transient operation.